Rehearsals for Living Quotes

“My ancestors didn’t need hope to build resistance, to build Nishnaabeg life and imaginings beyond regulation. Our movements and mobilizations do not have the privilege of resting upon a fleeting emotion. The absence of hope is a beautiful catalyst. Tenacity, persistence, stubbornness, rage, resentment, pessimism and despair are all motivators. So are joy, love, attachment, care, truth, optimism, respect and reciprocity. So is the delicious soup in which all those exist at once.”
― Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Rehearsals for Living

“By way of contrast, I am hearing reports of white Canadians who are refusing to wear masks, who are vehemently opposed to abiding by the public health measures that would help protect vulnerable people from contracting the virus. Refusing a sacrifice so small, a slight physical discomfort, to protect this society’s elders—their elders too!—its healthcare workers and its immunocompromised. Simply because they are drunk on this society’s individualism, and do not wish, I suppose, to be inconvenienced for the sake of another, not if it means being “told what to do.”
― Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living